Sociodemographic and environmental factors associated with childhood sleep duration

Abstract

Objectives: This study investigates sociodemographic and environmental correlates of sleep duration among school-aged children.

Design & setting: The New York City 2009 Child Community Health Survey was analyzed using weighted regression analyses.

Participants: 1293 Asian, Black, Latino and White children ages 6-12 years, 999 children in Pre-K - 5th grade and 294 children in the 6th-8th grades.

Measurements: Parents/guardians completed a survey about the target child's sleep duration on a typical school night/day, and sociodemographic and household characteristics.

Results: Most children (89.3%) met the National Sleep Foundation's (NSF) recommendation of 9-11 h of sleep per night. Pre-K-5th grade children who were born in the United States were less likely than children born outside of the United States to sleep 9-11 h. When sleep duration was examined continuously, children slept an average of 9 h 44 min. On average, with each additional year of age, children slept 7.2 min less than children who were one year younger. Although there were no differences among ethnic/racial groups in sleeping the recommended 9-11 h/night, when sleep duration was measured as a continuous variable, Asian, Latino, and Black children slept an average of 23, 14, and 17 min fewer, respectively, than White children, adjusting for sociodemographic and environmental factors.

Conclusions: Sleep duration varied across sociodemographic groups of children in New York City in 2009. Future studies should determine causal influences and whether these differences persist.

Keywords: Children; Disparities; Ethnicity/race; Sleep duration.

Fig. 1.

Ethnic/racial differences in sleep duration. Adjusted and unadjusted sleep duration by ethnic/racial group. Notes. Models are adjusted for sleeping through the night, having a regular bedtime, physical activity, media use, child health history, asthma, age, gender, child nativity, parent nativity, family SES, crowding, smoker in the home. Non-Hispanic Asian/PI, non-Hispanic Black, and Hispanic/Latino children sleep significantly less than non-Hispanic White children. Bonferroni post-hoc pairwise comparisons revealed no significant differences between Asian, Black or Latino children (adjusted p = 0.05/6 comparisons = 0.008).